A stop sign in the middle of an intersection during a power outage in Marin City, California on Oct. 9, 2019.
Photographer: Jason Henry/The New York Times/ReduxRising Fire Risk Prompts Utilities to Deliberately Cut Power
Data, technology and human judgment help US power companies consider when to turn off transmission lines.
States in the US West are grappling with an unusually warm, arid winter that is ramping up fire risk in some areas, driving utilities to take drastic precautions, including sometimes shutting off the power in a bid to keep their equipment from sparking a potentially ruinous blaze.
Across large pockets of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, fine grasses and brush that fuel fires have dried out as La Niña largely holds significant rain and snow at bay— a pattern that’s projected to continue into the spring. As fire weather alerts from the US National Weather Service loomed in December and January, Xcel Energy Inc. ordered multiple rounds of preventative power cuts in Colorado for more than 50,000 customers, many in the Boulder and Fort Collins areas, reaching into the Rocky Mountains.